This week, at the first meeting of Ealing Council’s cabinet since the general election, we looked back at the incredible progress made towards delivering the council plan in the last year.

The council plan outlines the bold and ambitious agenda that we set out at the beginning of our term of office 2 years ago and reflected the priorities that residents told us they wanted to see.

I’ll try and give you a whistlestop review of some of the highlights.

Safe and genuinely affordable homes

In the last year, we provided 40 new supported places for rough sleepers and fulfilled our commitment to spending £20million on safe and secure places for people to stay. This was a 4-year target which, remarkably, we met at end of year 2.

We closed Meath and Marston Court, moving residents to more appropriate accommodation, and agreed to invest a staggering £150million in providing much needed new temporary accommodation.

Working successfully with our voluntary sector partners, we helped very vulnerable people in our borough who, according to current national legislation, aren’t entitled to receive benefits or housing, but who desperately need help.

Decent living incomes

We surpassed our target of supporting residents with the toughest barriers into good jobs – 3,355 so far against a 4-year target of 2,000.

500 apprenticeships were created last year, and 3,331 qualification and training programme graduations took place.

We invested £800,000 in training and employment services helping more people than ever find good, well-paid jobs and 67 more employers in the borough are now accredited as paying London Living Wage.

Good growth and new housing

A new Local Plan shaping growth and development in the borough for the next 15 years was agreed. The Local Plan guides planning decisions on homes, infrastructure, climate change, jobs, and sets out how we can address health issues and inequalities. It also shows what needs to be protected, conserved or enhanced such as green spaces, canals, heritage assets, shopping areas and employment space. And all of this was informed by the views of people living in each of our 7 towns.

The council’s planning authority is currently ranked as the best performing planning authority in London, meaning people and developers get good decisions quickly on their planning applications.

And, this year, we secured the sixth highest amount of the New Home Bonus grant: £4.8million. This is paid to councils in recognition of their work and policies which drive housing growth.

Climate action

We progressed our ambitious and exciting vision to create a new regional park, and protected Warren Farm by ensuring that all the existing green space will be retained and rewilded.

Residents now have 105 bike hangars to store their cycles safely with more planned and there are 658 electric vehicle charge points (EVCPs) across the borough, helping to encourage cleaner and more active travel.

We remain the third best borough in London for recycling rates – thanks to you for being such ardent recyclers – and 20,500 more trees were planted on streets and in parks and open spaces.

Thriving communities

Significant progress on a new Gurnell Leisure Centre was made this year. A radically different and better plan was submitted. A 50-metre swimming pool, improved gym and climbing wall are just some of the facilities residents could enjoy in the future. 

We also launched a new Ealing culture news and events website, helping residents enjoy the work of the thousands of unique and dynamic artists in Ealing. Whatever you love doing, seeing or hearing, there’s always something happening for everyone to enjoy across the borough.

Extensive and inclusive engagement and consultation was carried out this year to help our ambition to reduce the inequalities and discrimination faced by people and communities. Close to 1,000 of you took part in the ‘Your Voice, Your Town’ (YVYT) engagement programme, designed to make it easier for more local people to be involved in the decisions that are made about the places where they live.

Inclusive economy

Despite being on the receiving end of more than a decade of funding reductions from the previous government, we agreed a budget for the coming year which protects vital services in a time of crisis and supports our vision of supported and connected communities.

Our record of managing our finances with care and prudence means that we can also continue to deliver for Ealing and do the things that residents say are important to them: things like keeping the streets clean, and supporting schools to continue delivering excellent education for our young people – especially for children with special educational needs and disabilities. We will also continue to attract investment in the borough, leading to more good jobs and more genuinely affordable housing. 

We also improved our Council Tax Reduction Scheme, meaning many people on low incomes will receive an 80% discount. 

Healthy equal lives

Throughout the last year, we continued our focus on creating connected communities ensuring people have what they need to connect with friends and neighbours so that communities can help and support each other, and shape where they live.

This year, we secured £5million in funding from the National Institute of Health and Care Research. This will enable closer work with communities and academic partners to develop a better understanding of what it is across Ealing that effects wellbeing and plan how we can work together to improve health inequities.

Great strides were made in further developing our care co-production programme, meaning that the users of our care and support services are hand in hand with us in shaping those services.

A fairer start

Children and young people get a great education, have a fantastic time and are well looked after at our borough’s state schools. In 2023-24, 98% of maintained schools were rated Good or Outstanding by Ofsted.

The care and support we provide for Ealing’s most vulnerable children and young adults has improved too. Ofsted also praised the council’s children’s services teams recently for their determination to continually improve the quality of services for children and families.

In the last year, we published an action plan to deliver on the council’s commitment to care leavers as a protected characteristic. We held a brilliant care leaver takeover day at the council and 63% of the pledges made at the spring 2023 Care Leavers Summit have already been achieved, with the rest on-track to be met.

Tackling crime and anti-social behaviour

£3.25million was invested this year to fight anti-social behaviour (ASB), burglary, violent crime, and violence against women. Our safer communities teams investigated more than 2,700 cases of anti-social behaviour and more than 5,000 resident engagement activities took place.

The council’s parks and estates patrol team, Parkguard, increased its proactive patrolling, leading to more police arrests, including175 for drug offences – a year-on-year increase of 6%. More action was also taken on breaches of the borough-wide public spaces protection order (PSPO).

£1.2million has been invested in preventing youth violence in the last 2 years. We have expanded the Mentors in Violence prevention scheme across several of the borough’s high schools, with staff and pupil mentors trained to help each other in challenging and preventing bullying, violence and abuse.

There’s been a lot happening across the borough and there’s even more coming. We’ll be publishing our next delivery plan after the summer as well as the results of the resident’s survey, which tells us how you think we’re doing and your views about where you live in the borough.